New York blasts Texas governor for weaponizing immigrants

New York, Aug 17 (EFE).- A high-ranking member of the New York municipal administration spoke out Wednesday against Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision to send busloads of undocumented migrants to the Big Apple.

“Clearly Gov. Abbott is using innocent human beings as a weapon against New York. That is wrong. We condemn those actions,” Manuel Castro told reporters at the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

“But New York City’s here to welcome people, to provide them the support that they need, and support them as they arrive,” the head of Mayor Eric Adams’s Office of Immigrant Affairs said as municipal workers and volunteers prepared to receive four migrant buses from Texas.

Efe watched dozens of people, including families with small children and infants, get off the buses.

New York shelters have welcomed 6,000 migrants from Texas in the last two weeks, according to city hall sources.

Abbott, a Republican running for re-election in November, started bussing migrants to Washington in April to dramatize his complaint that Democratic President Joe Biden is not doing enough to help Texas manage what the governor calls a crisis on the Mexican border.

Texas subsequently expanded the program to include dispatching migrants to New York, a liberal Democratic stronghold.

Castro said that Texas authorities refuse to coordinate with New York about the numbers of migrants, the itinerary or the schedule of the trips.

Officials here have to rely on from the mainly Catholic charitable groups that have taken it upon themselves to provide assistance to the migrants en route for information allowing them to plan for the buses’ arrivals.

“We do know that many people have been leaving the buses along the way,” Castro said. “We are aware that Gov. Abbott has hired a private security firm to keep families, individuals in the buses, but they’re managing to leave on their way here anyway.”

“New York City will always be welcoming and will have compassion for people who have gone through so much, especially asylum seekers and those fleeing crises and persecution,” the commissioner said.

As they get off the buses, the migrants are sorted by city workers into groups to be sent to municipal shelters designated for families, single women and single men, respectively. EFE

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